On the Surface
by Eponymous
Summary: A young Phantom Tribe boy named Galus infiltrates the Roshtarian Palace, and meets a little girl named Rune.


On the Surface  
by Eponymous  
  
They'd told him there would be pain, but not like this.  
  
He thought he was prepared. He'd acclimated himself to the heat, just as   
instructed. He'd spent hours each day in the magma caves under Mount Trelian,   
building up his resistance. While the others his age had kept to the outer   
caverns, he'd walked all the way down the winding natural passageways, until he   
was at the precipice overlooking the river of churning, boiling rock. Had he   
been older and more versed in poetics, he might have drawn a parallel between   
this burning river lurking beneath the surface and his own people. But he was   
just a boy, and as he sat looking down at the flowing lava, he thought only of   
blood.  
  
He thought he was prepared. His illusion casting had always been far better   
than average for his age, and now that he was impervious to the conditions of   
the surface world, he saw no sense in waiting for permission from the elders.   
He would go to the surface now, today, and examine his enemies. And where   
better to do that than the Roshtarian Palace? When he returned he would be   
hailed not only for his endurance, but for the crucial information he would   
surely bring back. He could already hear the council praising him as he stepped   
out of the tunnels.  
  
But it wasn't the heat. It was scorching, to be sure, but that wasn't what   
gripped at his chest, drove him to the nearest shadows mere minutes after he set   
foot on the grass. It was the light. Light, everywhere. Surrounding him,   
baring down on him from every side, forcing its way past his clothes, through   
the very pores of his skin. Violating him. Galus repressed a scream and   
clutched his knees. It was all he could do to keep from weeping in agony.  
  
He had hid. Fled instinctively to the relative safety of the shade from a  
nearby group of rose bushes. He tried desperately to ignore their smell as he   
tried to figure a route back to the caverns that did not involve stepping into   
that accursed light.  
  
But he could barely think. Even here in this sanctuary of gray, he was not   
safe. Even with the light muted, he could still see them. The colors. They   
burned at his eyes, threatening to blind him. Gold towers that singed his   
pupils to view, shining in the light of that screaming bright circle hanging in   
the sickeningly deep blue. Green that almost glowed, seeping off the grass that   
should have held it, leaving it free to advance up towards him. And the massive   
white walls of the palace, looming before him, ready to advance and crush him.   
White, the color of death. It was enough to make him want to shut his eyes to   
it.  
  
No! To shut your eyes to it was to become like *them*! They who blinded   
themselves to the world around them, willfully ignoring the consequences of   
their actions. They who had ripped his people from their home. His home, where   
he should have been born. Where he should have lived. His people had been away   
from it so long no one could even recall what it was like any more. But Galus   
knew. He knew what it was like.   
  
It was home.  
  
And THEY had taken it from him.  
  
To become like them was a fate worse than death. Galus snapped his head up to   
stare into it all, to defy it-  
  
...and saw a girl. One of them. She was pushing a small cart into the royal   
garden, inattentive to anything but it. Unaware. Blind. Her hair was a mute   
brown, and for that he was grateful. On her head was a small headpiece; bronze   
was its color. Yes, they liked to adorn themselves with things like that,   
didn't they? So concerned with appearances, as though a piece of metal or a   
swatch of cloth determined their worth, their power.  
  
Her dress was white.  
  
Galus sneered. For a single moment he wanted to run out there, rip the girl's   
head free, and laugh as he held it up in defiance of the surface world. 'See   
how easily you fall before us?' he would shout. 'See how your ridiculous   
ornaments protect you?!' Fools. Blind fools, all of them.  
  
But that would be impulsive, reckless. To act without planning was not his   
people's way. Anticipation, careful consideration, patience; these were the   
principles that had guided them for tens of centuries. That was how they had   
survived. It had been a mistake to come up here. He had thought he was   
prepared, but he was not. He should have waited, planned better. But he would   
learn from his mistake. He would not act in defiance of his people's principles   
again, no matter how satisfying the act of killing her would be.  
  
Besides, it would entail going out into the light.  
  
No, he had to return to the caverns. Find a way back to the comforting,   
permeating darkness that would envelop him, seep into him and complete him.   
Restore his connection with the infinity of blackness that was his world. He   
had to do it soon, for he felt at any minute the light would breach his refuge,   
swallow him up and hold him in its glowing maw, cutting him off from the dark   
forever. It would hold him until he shriveled and died.  
  
He searched the skies for some sign of gray. He knew there were pockets of   
evaporated water above the ground that sometimes blocked the sunlight. All he   
would need is a few moments of cover, and he could return to the entrance to the   
hidden tunnel on the palace grounds.  
  
He knew what his peers would say in a situation like this. They would wish that   
they could use their power of illusion on themselves, so they would *believe*   
themselves free of the light, at least. Weak-minded fools, yearning for self-  
delusion. Galus doubted many of them would survive the next culling.  
  
He scanned the sky but found no trace of clouds. There was no choice, he would   
have to go back through the light. He breathed in once, trying to ignore the   
stench of roses, before he left his shelter.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
Galus jumped, toppling backwards. The girl, he realized, as his eyes spread   
wide. The girl was looking directly at him. Damnation! In his panic, he'd let   
his illusion slip. She could see him. In fact, she was approaching him.  
  
He had to act fast. If they found him on the Palace grounds they would execute   
him immediately, he was sure of it. It was, after all, what he would do if he   
found one of them in the tunnels. He couldn't turn himself invisible; the girl   
had already seen him. For the moment, though, he was cloaked in the shadows.   
She hadn't yet seen the color of his skin. He quickly summoned into his mind   
the image of a Roshtarian boy with features similar to his own and projected it   
around himself.  
  
He sat up, forcing himself somewhat into the light. He had to endure it. If he   
stayed in the shadows she would suspect him immediately. Now, how did they   
greet each other?  
  
"Um, hello," he said, looking up at the girl. She was nearly his height, he   
guessed.  
  
"Hello," she said, looking almost concerned. Well, of course she was, she   
thought he was one of her people. "Are you alright?" she asked.  
  
No, he was in hell. But they wouldn't say that, would they? He remembered what   
he'd been taught about their self-deception. "I'm fine," he said, with the same   
indifference towards one's physical state any Roshtarian would display. As a   
crowning touch, he smiled.  
  
"I'm glad," she sighed. "Let me help you up." She reached out towards him, and   
Galus shrieked as monstrous grey jaws went wide and surged at him.  
  
The girl stopped, puzzled at his reaction, then she looked down at her right   
hand. Specifically the point at which the end of her arm vanished into a small   
gray dragon. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to frighten you." She   
held her right hand up for him to see and removed the dragon, leaving the five   
pink digits he would have expected.  
  
Galus got to his feet on his own. It was just as well, he preferred not to   
touch the girl. His teachers had taught him to avoid physical contact like that   
because the flakes of skin he shed, small though they were, would revert to   
their natural blue after they left the area of the illusion he cast. They were   
miniscule, but if someone knew what to look for, they could spell the end of a   
successful operation. He had another reason to avoid physical contact, though.   
That being, she disgusted him.  
  
"Um, who are you?" the girl asked.  
  
"My name is Idel," he said. A common name, among their kind. "What's yours?"  
  
"I'm Rune," she smiled playfully, just barely showing off her teeth. White   
teeth.  
  
Galus was put on his guard even more. He recognized the girl now, one of the  
female royals they bred as components of their weaponry. The force assigned to   
protecting such a valuable commodity would be great, and no doubt close at hand.   
He would have to be doubly careful not to arouse any suspicion in her, lest she   
call on them.  
  
She would ask him how he came to be here next, and he had no suitable   
explanation. Fortunately, he knew how easily their attention might be diverted.   
Glancing to the inanimate, hollowed dragon he asked, "May I ask what that is?"  
  
"This?" she asked, not even comprehending the simple act of his looking directly   
up on it.  
  
"That's right," he said, keeping his annoyance concealed. The face he showed   
her never lost its smile while he frowned disdainfully.  
  
"He's a gift," she explained finally, "Father gave him to me when he returned   
from Styrenia. I've been showing him to Fatora."  
  
As if to answer his unvoiced inquiry, she replaced the false creature and   
presented it to the cart, which Galus now recognized as the way her kind   
conveyed their infants about. Inside, a brown-eyed infant just recently born   
lay swathed in blankets, producing inarticulate noises each time Rune's   
concealed hand twitched in some fashion.   
  
Fatora. He recognized the name. Galus looked down with guarded eyes upon the   
gurgling collection of instinct and need that would some day become one of   
Roshtaria's rulers. A piece of the very thing that had robbed his people of   
their homeland. His fist curled once behind his back.  
  
"This is your sister?" he asked.  
  
"That's right," she told him, still absorbed by the poor hoax of animation she   
was giving to the otherwise inert thing on her hand. Still rubber twisted from   
within uncoordinatedly. Blank circles fixed where a live creature's eyes should   
be rested on opposite sides of a plastic beak, bobbing up and down jerkily with   
the motions of the weak fingers within. Galus watched the piteous display with   
some interest.   
  
"I still haven't decided what to name him," she spoke of the puppet. "I've been   
asking Fatora, but she didn't like any of the names I thought of. Did you?" she   
asked her speechless sibling.  
  
In response to the question, the infant princess flicked her eyes about,   
mouthing randomly. Such a predictable response of incomprehension was matched   
by Rune's own, as she heard in the random physical exertions some invented   
sentiment that she wished to hear.  
  
"Maybe you can help me think of a name," Rune suggested to him.  
  
Obviously, to deny the request of a Roshtarian sovereign would invite suspicion   
as to his loyalty. He took it upon himself to agree and summon more of their   
names into his mind for the offering. He gave one or two, but as he did   
remained alert to the fact that she was observing him with a slight flicker at   
the end of her lips, as if threatening at any moment to unleash those deathly   
biting instruments again at him. Finally, she interrupted him in mid-speech.  
  
"You aren't supposed to be here, are you?"  
  
Damn her eyes! Why had he not thought to bring a weapon?! He must conceal   
himself and make for the tunnels before the palace guard could be summoned. No,   
perhaps he should attempt to strike her down by hand before she could call for   
them. He kept his body fixed still while his eyes searched behind a placid look   
for a weapon. He concentrated on keeping the image around him in place where it   
was, and began to edge out from within it. A rock lay half-buried in the soil a   
few lengths away, by bushes he had so recently abandoned. If he could only dive   
for it under cover of invisibility while the image distracted her-  
  
He had only lifted one foot from within the image when she added, "It's all   
right. I won't tell anyone."  
  
Galus stopped short. The urgency was fled with that, and while his alertness  
remained, the absence of an immediate threat allowed the strain of the technique   
he was attempting to finally register. He quickly shoved his foot back into   
place, foolishly dislodging the turf beneath his toe. Had she been paying   
closer attention to him, he would certainly have discovered himself at that   
moment.  
  
But she was not. Galus was astonished.  
  
She was of their royal line. She knew, certainly, of the threats that existed   
to her. She had just discovered a trespasser on the grounds of their most   
secure structure, and yet the idea of his having hostile intentions was still   
foreign to her?  
  
"Can I tell you a secret, Idel?" she asked him.  
  
While he doubted this girl would be trusted with any critical information if   
this sort of behavior had been in evidence to those possessed of it, there was   
always the possibility they had willfully not seen it. It was with a small   
modicum of hope that he answered yes.  
  
"I've been lonely, since Fatora was born," she said, casting her eyes to the   
ground beneath her. Galus had a sudden, inexplicable urge to let his illusion   
drop, and raise it only just before she looked upon him again, an urge he   
immediately crushed. She looked up again. "Mother has been tired, and father   
has been busy with his duties, so it's been only Fatora and me."  
  
Tired? The truth was known even to the surface dwellers' peasantry. Yet here,   
beside the very building in which her mother lay rasping her final breaths, this   
girl remained willfully oblivious. It was no wonder they were so self-deluded,   
if their future rulers were reared to practice such ignorance.  
  
"That's why I'm glad I found you here," she completed. "Can you stay for a   
while?"  
  
The strangest feeling was passing over Galus. For a moment, it was as though   
the grass meant to slide out from beneath his feet and hurl him directionless   
through opaque air, never to land. To coast forever in a sea of dark. A laugh   
swelled in his chest.   
  
It did not reach his lips, so well set was the cautious expression on his face,   
but it did weaken that expression's foundation somewhat. He translated it   
instead into another beneficent smile on the Roshtarian boy's - Idel's - face.   
  
"I would be honored to spend time here with you, your highness," he said. If   
there truly was no danger, it might do well to learn what he might from their   
princess, he reasoned. Besides that, there was a certain satisfaction to   
pretending subservience to one who knew nothing of his true mind. He let his   
eyes slip to the rock once more, and then in full view of her, turned his head   
towards it.  
  
"Do you like the rose bushes, Idel?" she asked, on seeing this. Of course, she   
paid only cursory attention to what he did. That was their way.  
  
He said, "Yes, they are most beautiful," and looked at her again, secretly  
startled when her face abruptly shifted color. He quickly corrected himself -   
blood had rushed into her cheeks as a result of some perceived embarrassment or   
compliment. A capillary effect, he knew of these. It seemed she'd drawn some   
connection that did not actually exist within her mind, to react to. It was   
typical, and yet, from this distance, strangely amusing.  
  
There came another ineffectual gurgle from within the carriage, and she turned   
to it with a sudden rapt attention. The infant within squirmed beneath the   
cloth, and the elder princess waved the puppet before her eyes as if its   
primitive drives could be mollified by a flash of muted color it could barely   
perceive.  
  
The squirming ceased of its own volition, and the princess took this as a   
success so quickly that the self-deception had to have been practiced. "You   
take care of her often, don't you?" he guessed.  
  
"Oh, yes," she said, volunteering once more far more information than could   
possibly be wise, "Father says, if I take good enough care of Fatora, maybe her   
first words will be 'Big Sister'. Do you think that might be?"  
  
"Absolutely, yes," he said, watching the child occasionally twitch, small and   
pink, with dull brown eyes staring up at him.  
  
Rune asked, "Would you like to hold her?"  
  
His first thought was that of unequivocal revulsion. To touch so small a   
surface dweller - to allow that much of its body to come into contact with   
him...  
  
But then a thought flew into his mind, and the image the girl was shown became a   
warm smile. "I would like that very much, thank you."  
  
The girl reached into the cradle to remove it as he scraped at his own hands   
behind his back silently, prying loose every dead skin cell lest any be seen on   
the infant's clothes. Then Galus held out his hands and accepted Princess   
Fatora into them.  
  
Rune smiled as she watched an image of Idel admiring the child with benevolent   
interest. Galus' own lips were drawn in a baneful smile only he was aware of.   
The Second Princess of Roshtaria gurgled at him pitifully as he grasped her in   
his hands. The light around him was wholly forgotten now, the colors muted, the   
pain pushed far off. He felt instead a darkness come upon him like none he had   
ever known.  
  
He could snap the infant's neck in an instant, before it had a chance to cry   
out, then lay the body back in the cradle. All he need do was project the image   
and sounds of a cheerful, living child to her sister as he did so. He could   
watch this foolish girl smile dotingly to the still form, waving her   
ridiculously disguised hand in front of eyes more blind than even her own.  
  
Yes, it was tempting indeed. But it was an act of impulse, lacking strategy or   
foreknowledge of its consequences. It might be that depriving the Alliance of a   
second princess with which to activate the Eye of God would be fortuitous. But   
what if the elders had devised a plot that required it possess them? What if,   
even, this princess alone was important to the Phantom Tribe's future?  
  
No, the Phantom Tribe did not act without planning. And while the power he felt   
was delicious, Galus knew now that it must be mediated by design.  
  
He set the infant down once more within the cart. This did not end his dominion   
over her, he knew. He could still strike at her or her sister at any time, and   
his actions would be seen only by himself. The pleasure knowledge of that power   
afforded him, though he knew he would not use it this day, was enough to keep   
him in the elder princess' presence for hours more.  
  
She spoke of other things: the meaningless arrangements of the plants they grew   
here, the hues that stained the sky as the sky's fireball waned, her foolish   
hope for her mother's survival. He gave her every impression of interest and   
support, and in his turn, brought up a love of the night. He spoke of its   
coolness and the security of its darkened shroud, and still she suspected   
nothing of him. He even went so far as to intermingle a few quotations from his   
people's ancient texts in his descriptions. Not as a test, as no surface   
dweller would recognize them, but simply for the thrill of having spoken his   
holy words to the face of one of their leaders without the martyrdom he had   
always believed that would necessitate.  
  
At length a call was heard for her, and she quickly ushered him to hide. He   
assured her he could get back the way he had entered and obtained her promise   
never to speak of his presence there today to anyone. Indeed, she granted this   
with such eagerness he would have suspected deception were he not by now so well   
acquainted with her imbecility.  
  
He retreated into the bushes and, as soon as he perceived no eyes upon him,   
rendered himself invisible once more. Rune remained in the garden until a   
female servant came for her. To her inquiries as to how Rune had passed the   
time, she stated only that she had been talking to Fatora, nothing more.  
  
Galus was relieved. Had she disclosed his presence, someone in the palace would   
surely have had the thought to suspect Tribe activity, and perhaps sought out   
and discovered the passageway. The loss of such a strategic inlet would   
certainly have secured Galus a place in the next culling.   
  
But he would not have to tell the elders anything, now. He would return to the   
tunnels and tell no one of where he had been this day. And what he had learned   
this day, he would keep with him always.  
  
Galus slipped unseen back into the tunnels and descended into the dark.  
  
  
Epilogue  
  
In her bed, in one of the most opulent rooms in the Floristica Palace, Rune   
Venus slept well.  
  
The day had been a wondrous one for her. She'd spent time away from her royal   
duties, engaged in a simple and relaxing activity. She'd been able to speak to   
another as an equal, sharing her thoughts and feelings, and even her concerns   
with them. And she'd listened to another speak to her, not merely of what they   
wanted of her or wanted to give her, but of what they thought of the world, of   
things beyond the palace and the life she herself was living. She promised   
herself she would do it again some day, given the opportunity.  
  
Until then, she would remember this day fondly. In the coming weeks, as her   
mother's condition worsened, and finally ended her life, as her father followed   
soon behind, dead of grief, she would hold fast to the memory of this one,   
perfect afternoon in the garden. In coming years, as she found herself burdened   
by the responsibilities of her newfound authority, she would rely on the memory   
of this day as a constant comfort.  
  
On that, and her beloved dragon puppet, Idel.  
  
***  
  
In his bed, deep in the earth where no light reached, Galus slept well.   
  
The day had been a wondrous one for him. He had walked on the surface, in one   
of their most secure places, without its inhabitants suspecting a thing of him.   
He had fooled that ridiculous girl, one of their royalty no less, with a simple   
illusion and a few false words. And greatest of all, he had held their second   
princess completely at his mercy, knowing at any time he could kill her, or   
better, cause her a fraction of the agony her people had caused his, with but a   
thought.  
  
He promised herself he'd do it again some day, given the opportunity.  
  
  
  
  
---  
  
Author's Note:  
  
For the purposes of this story, I'd ask you to forget that AIC says Galus was   
130 in the OAV series, if you knew about that. If you didn't, I'd ask you to   
forget I even mentioned it.  
  
El-Hazard was created by Hiroki Hayashi and Ryoe Tsurimura and is the property   
of AIC and Pioneer Entertainment. 


End file.
